After an extensive four-month search, Pat McGuigan announced on July 23 that Leslie Gell has been asked to serve as director of Ready to Learn Providence.
The announcement was greeted with a hearty round of applause from her colleagues at R2LP, where Leslie has served as director of professional development since 2006. In that role, she has been responsible for the day-to-day management of the $3 million Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Grant as well as R2LP’s many other professional development initiatives.
Leslie succeeds Joyce Butler, who served as director of R2LP since its inception in 2002.“I’ve got some tough shoes to fill,” says Leslie, “but Joyce has created an extraordinary foundation upon which to build, and build we will! Collectively, we’re an incredibly strong organization, and R2LP will continue our work towards realizing the vision that all children will enter school and healthy and ready to learn."
Leslie brings more than 17 years of administrative and management experience in the fields of both early care and education and adult education. Prior to joining R2LP, she served as director of Adult Education/Literacy Services in the Division for Lifelong Learning at the Community College of Rhode Island. From 1995 to 2002, she was the executive director of the Brown/Fox Point Early Childhood Education Center, where she continues to serve on the board of directors. For four years in the early ‘90s she was the coordinator of vocational training programs at the International Institute of Rhode Island and prior to that she worked as a preschool teacher at a kibbutz in Israel.
